


Sea, swallow me.

by Zigzagwanderer



Series: Tomorrow was our Golden Age. [5]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Jealousy, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-04
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 03:47:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13849434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: Following on from Inside Looking Out. The Inspector is also in an earlier Vakkrehejm story, I am trying to repost them all bit by bit, starting with The Rhymes of Goodbye. Apologies for the fractured timeline! And the use of Will and H's pseudonyms as Eirik and Thomas Buckley.





	Sea, swallow me.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaringD](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaringD/gifts).



A well-made chair. Sound and serviceable; the joints glued firm.  


No, not glued; _mortised_. Hours of work and non-work dovetailed uncompromisingly together. Pastimes positioned alongside paperwork, domestic matters stitched in to support duty, and all braced together by the policing of an autonomous archipelago, until nothing teeters or distorts, and there are no weak, empty gaps left between the joinery in which to tremble with regret.  


Seamless. Painless. Until he is shown the flaw in the furniture. The gap in _everything_.  


And the shape of that gap is Eirik Buckley.  


Inspector Daniel Linna is not a romantic. He will not suffer from heartache. After all, the sun and rain fall on all of the islands, each and every day, whether they are verdant or barren.  


Each. And. Every. Day.  


So, he can observe them without splintering apart, as they entwine on the boardwalk.  


Eirik. And the simpering parasite, Thom.  


And if he turns away as their mouths meet, then it is only to appraise the tidy deck of Eirik’s handsome boat, reaching towards shoulders of smoothed wood, bridles, shackles and cleats, a beard of rope bristling beneath his gloved hands.  


He notices a scarf left behind on the bench towards the stern. Out of place. The ribboning blue of the wool such a clear, precise shade. 

Carefully chosen.  


Carelessly discarded.  


And Inspector Linna wants to shred the softness of it, unmake its weave to base threads, ripping warp from weft, so that the two interwoven parts are interwoven no longer.  


“Inspector.” Eirik’s expression changes as he approaches the police launch. “A cloudless day for the fair. Not having to patrol during all of the merry-making, I hope?”  
“A laptop was stolen from a yacht anchored at Lindbakk marina,” the policeman informs Eirik stiltedly, brushing at nothing on his immaculate uniform jacket. Thom looks at the gesture as he goes past, tugging Eirik’s cologne along with him, as if it is his right.  
“Regrettable, don’t you agree, Thom?” Hannibal is at his most charmingly concerned, and Will mutely occupies himself with stowing away their gear, lest he allows the sharp-toothed emotion rearing up inside him to envenomate the unsuspecting morning.  
Hannibal smiles again at Linna. “Safe mooring is the keystone of your sailing tourism here, I would imagine.”  


Will feels the hinge of the great, serpent’s jaw clicking within his skull. It is a bold sound in the empty dock.  


“Yes,” the Inspector says. His head turns, tightly, seaward. Sunbeams eddy through the meltwater, blinding him. There are only the irregular disharmonies of the waves in the bay. Curving birdflight. He is cornered, rigid, trapped between fluidities. “Security is paramount,” he manages to rattle out.  
Eirik nods as if he understands completely. “Well, Thom and I must go, but I wish you good hunting, Daniel.” 

“Thank you.” The Inspector squints at the plank beneath his boots. Mindlessly counts the nails. They are hammered, enviably, right down, right away from the traitorous caresses of all catalysing elements.  


He frowns.  


Thom Buckley is a lazy sybarite, he is supposed to be lounging around on Vakkrehejm. He is not supposed to be here. Not gazing down through narrowed eyes at the Inspector, as if he can _see_ the gap in his heart. As if he can see the tremble in Linna’s poor, wooden bones.  


“On a…” Linna cannot say _personal_. He cannot say _private_. “On a…local note, I wished to extend to you…both…an invitation.”  


The Buckleys are abruptly attentive. There is a spark between them. Horizontal lightning. Bolts of scalding blue and a bloody gold passing through the conductive salinity of the air.  


“At Easter, my brother is due to return to the archipelago for a holiday.” Linna blinks at something he cannot quite grasp and continues. “An annual occurrence. I generally host a get-together so he can see old friends.”  


“Wouldn’t we be intruding, then?” Thom wonders aloud, all politeness. “As newcomers?”  
Then he idly winds himself up in his scarf, and inside, Inspector Linna is twisting it and around and around, grasping and pulling on the ends of that endless strip of heaven, until his hands _ache_ with it.  


He swallows. “Antony is a concert musician, Mr Buckley. He studied in America and then has been attached to various symphony orchestras over there.”  


“Oh?” Eirik answers for his husband, starting to loosen the knots from the posts, his back to the Inspector. His wrists flex. “Do you think our paths may have crossed, then, when Thom and I lived in the United States?”  


Eirik turns and inclines his head, poised. Linna has not seen that gesture from him before, and thinks it frighteningly beautiful. 

Thom has straightened up to take the lines, yet is still, somehow, coiled.  


The ferry blares as it rounds the headland.  


Linna puts his hand up in salute. People wave back, as they always do.  


“I would not have thought it likely,” he laughs stiffly, staring at the boatload of tourist traffic. “Ante is staunchly bohemian in habit.”  


Eirik raises an eyebrow then, amused. “And Thom and myself are resolutely mundane, I agree. Still, no doubt there will be mutual places of interest to talk over. And there is always Bach.”  


Thom sighs, entitled to his exasperation. It breaks Linna into matchwood.  


“In short, we would be pleased to attend, if you let us know the particulars,” Eirik says, stepping from the boardwalk.  
“Uh, babe, don’t forget that public lecture we’re going to at the veterinary institute. Ticks and tickborne diseases.” Thom helps Eirik embark, his hands digging in. He grins at the Inspector. The scar on his cheek is a second smile. “Would hate _anything_ to clash with _that_.”  


Inspector Daniel Linna creaks his way back onto his launch. Slots into the pilot’s chair. He recalls his grandfather keeping a small flock of Finnish Landrace for their fleece, so he knows about ticks. He knows that when you find one, leeching away the vitality of its victim, you must act. And there is only one efficient way to deal with a bloodsucker like that.  


You must detach it from its host, and destroy it.


End file.
